Ketamine: Mental effects

Last modified: Sunday, 31. May 2009 - 4:46 pm

Within five minutes of taking ketamine, users generally feel a non-localized numbness, a heaviness in the limbs, blurred vision, muffled or distorted hearing, and a floating sensation. Users say the drug creates feelings of detachment and introversion. At higher doses, ketamine leads to pronounced changes in judgment, distorted vision, auditory hallucinations, such as humming or buzzing, and marked disorientation. Some users report a profound impact on the perception of time, which appears to slow to a complete halt in the emergent, or heavily hallucinatory state. Visions of life and death, some calming, others frightening, have been reported. Religious hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, and a pronounced dissociative state that some have called another plane of consciousness are also credited to ketamine. While in what is referred to as K-land or the K-state, users claim to gain insights into their personalities, the people they know, and the workings of the universe. Even experienced users misjudge the dosing and land in a life-threatening K-hole. In addition to vivid hallucinations, this state may be punctuated by convulsions, respiratory depression, and loss of consciousness. Memory is also acutely affected. Users may not remember taking the drug, or who or where they are. Users may experience bouts of paranoia or anger. The ketamine “high” usually can last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. However, depending on the dosage, tolerance, and method of ingestion, the drug’s effects can linger for four hours or more. Like most anesthetic agents, it may take the user 24-48 hours before they feel “normal” again.